Silent Witness

by Richard North Patterson

  “Anthony,” the priest cried out, “this is my obligation to you. Without absolution, you cannot receive Communion. It’s you I want to help.…”

  “You can’t, Father. Not in this life.”

  Blind with despair and sleeplessness and abandonment, Tony Lord turned and walked away from his church.

  * * *

  A little past five o’clock, sitting alone in the basement, Tony heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

  For a moment, Sam and Sue stood in the dim light. Then Sue hurried to where Tony sat, hugging him around the neck. “Tony, I’m so sorry.…”

  Eyes shut, Tony put his arms around her. For a long moment, he held her like that, oblivious to anything except relief at seeing her, the comfort of this sudden warmth. “I’m so damn glad that you guys came.…”

  She pressed her cheek against his forehead, then stepped back. Tony stood, embracing Sam. No one needed to talk.

  After a time, Sam and Sue sat on the plaid couch, feet planted on the linoleum. Tony did not ask where they had been; in his charcoal suit, Sam looked awkward and ill at ease; Sue’s somber navy outfit was one she wore only to church. Stripped of her vivacity, Sue looked smaller. Softly, Tony asked her, “How was it?”

  Sue seemed to consider what answer to give. “Hard,” she said at length. “Alison’s father tried to speak, and couldn’t. Her mother looked like someone else.” For a moment, she stared at the gray linoleum. “I’m glad that you weren’t there.”

  “I wanted to be, Sue. Their minister told me not to.”

  Sue looked up at him. “I know.”

  The simple phrase resonated with unspoken meaning. Steeling himself, Tony asked, “People think I killed her, don’t they?”

  Sue did not flinch. “People weren’t talking much,” she answered, then seemed to decide that this was not enough for a friend. “The ones who know you don’t think that. I guess some people don’t know what to think. I mean, it was just last Friday.…”

  “It’s unbelievable.” Sam broke in, and Tony saw that his eyes were suddenly moist. “I keep thinking about that night. That we were at the maple grove, safe, while this was happening to you. That if I’d just made you two come with us, it never would have happened.…”

  Sue gave him a look of silent remonstrance. But it did not matter: for hours on end, Tony had imagined himself and Alison safe in a parked car with these friends. So recently, he thought, there had been four of them; without Alison, it seemed that the organism that had been two couples had been maimed beyond healing.

  “It’s like a dream,” Tony said at last. “Like maybe tomorrow I can talk to her about it…”

  Sam folded his hands in front of him. At length, he said, “The papers say you told the cops you found her like that.…”

  Tony touched his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Was she … dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam watched him, hesitant. “The cops came out to see me, Tony.”

  Tony felt leaden. “What did they want?”

  “It was mostly about what happened that night, whose idea it was for us to split up.” Sam fixed Tony with his clear blue eyes. “That prick Dana asked me if you two ever fought. I told him never.”

  Tony exhaled. “They know better, Sam.”

  Slowly, Sue nodded. “They talked to me too. They wanted to know if Alison ever confided in me about your problems.”

  Tony reddened. “Did she?”

  “Yes.”

  Shame made Tony silent: Sue must know how much of that was about whether Alison would sleep with him. He could not bring himself to ask what Alison had said about him, or what Sue had told the police. Then Sue said quietly, “It’s okay, Tony. It’s confusing for women, that’s all. She said you were never mean about it.”

  Tony could think of nothing to say. “Is there any way you can help things?” Sam asked. “Like, did you see anyone?”

  Tony touched the bridge of his nose. “I heard someone in the park, I think running away from Alison’s body. It was too dark to see him.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Pretty much.” Tony drew a breath. “After that, I found her.”

  Sam leaned forward. “Look, Tony, maybe we can help you. It could be rough for you around school for a while. If Sue and I know what you told the cops, we can explain things, tell everyone your side of it. This can’t be as bad as the papers made it out.”

  There had been much more talk, Tony realized, than Sue had wished to say. But he should have expected this in Lake City: there was never an unwed girl whose pregnancy was not followed avidly, to the moment of delivery, or whose prior “affairs”—swollen in numbers by her supposed teenage lovers—were not recounted by her peers. How much more, then, for a murder. All at once, Tony saw that his weakness was that the folk opinion of the town had rewarded him until now; aware of his own innocence, he had imagined that this goodwill was his by right. Belatedly, he recalled Saul Ravin’s warning.

  “I’m not sure you guys can help me.” Tony paused, reluctant to finish. “At least my lawyer thinks you can’t.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

  “He says I shouldn’t talk to anyone. Even though I’m innocent, he thinks the cops will keep coming back to you, looking for stuff to hang me with.…”

  “So what?” Sam looked and sounded defiant. “Who is this guy?”

  “Saul Ravin.” Suddenly Tony felt the need to defend his lawyer. “He’s the best in Steelton.”

  “Some downtown lawyer who doesn’t even live here? Christ, Tony, we’re your friends. People will listen to us.” Sam’s voice rose in bewilderment. “What will they believe if you shut us out?”

  Beneath Sam’s concern, Tony thought, lay something prideful and proprietary—Tony was his friend; his relationship to Tony was shared by no one else. The knowledge that this was personal to Sam burdened Tony, and saddened him. Quietly, he said, “I don’t need you to be my lawyer, Sam. I need you to be my friend.” To soften this, Tony turned to Sue. “Saul thinks the best thing I can do is tell the cops what I know, and not spread it around to anyone else. The better the cops can do their job, he says, the better it is for me.” Pausing, he saw Sam’s look of frustration and doubt. “More than anything, I want them to find the bastard who killed Alison.”

  Glancing at Sam, Sue put her hand on his knee. Sam looked down at it, then at Tony, and slowly nodded. “We’ll do whatever you want us to, pal. Or whatever this lawyer wants.”

  For an awkward moment, they were silent. Then Sue rose and came to Tony, taking his hand in hers. “We all miss Alison, Tony. But we still have you.” Turning, she gave Sam an uncertain smile.

  Sam stood, and then draped his arms around Sue and Tony, pulling them close. “Sure,” he said. “Just like before.”

  TEN

  “I slept with her,” Tony said.

  He sat with McCain and Dana in the same cubicle. But this time Saul Ravin was with him, the door was ajar, and Saul had asked McCain to quit smoking. Looking irritable, the detective fidgeted with a manila envelope.

  “Why didn’t you tell us that?” Dana asked.

  Tony made himself consider his answer, carefully rehearsed with Ravin. As his lawyer had instructed, he looked straight at the detective. “Because I couldn’t take in what was happening. All I could think about was that this was Alison’s first time, and that it was nobody’s business but ours.” He paused, finishing quietly. “What happened to Alison wasn’t real yet.”

  McCain scowled. “You seemed coherent to me—”

  “If I were you,” Saul broke in coolly, “I’d forget about using Tony’s prior statement. Just like you forgot to call his parents, or his priest, or give him a Miranda warning, or even tell him where the bathroom was—”

  “He wasn’t in custody,” McCain snapped.

  “He’s seventeen, Lieutenant.” Saul gave the cop an amiable smile. “Let’s not quarrel about this. If you want to base a murder prosecution on browbeating
a teenager in shock, and then look like a jackass in front of God and the daily papers when some common pleas judge throws it out, that’s up to you. I don’t want to ruin your shot at fame.”

  McCain’s scalded-looking skin grew redder than before, and he began playing with the flap on the envelope. But Dana never took his eyes off Tony. “When you say you slept with her, what does that cover?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how did you do it?”

  Tony glanced at Saul. His lawyer was studying the wall with a slightly bored expression. “In the back seat of the car,” Tony answered.

  “I mean how. Like, did she go down on you?”

  Tony flushed. “No.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Did you come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Inside her.”

  “Inside her?” Dana’s voice was slightly derisive. “Is there some technical name for that?”

  Once more, Tony thought of Alison, the way she had looked and felt. In a flat voice, he said, “Vagina.”

  “And she wanted that?”

  “Yes.” Tony’s voice was tight. “Why don’t you just ask me if I raped her. We didn’t do it to give you thrills.…”

  Beneath the table, Tony felt Saul’s hand on his wrist. Leaning forward, Dana said softly, “There aren’t many thrills in this one, Tony. At least not for me. So tell me, you do anything else with her?”

  “No.”

  Slowly, McCain reached into the envelope. He drew forth three color photographs and laid them next to each other on the table, one by one.

  “Not even this?” McCain asked casually.

  In the photographs, Alison was lying on a table. Death had frozen her expression in the grimace Tony wished to forget, and now never would: mouth open in a silent cry of agony; tongue protruding slightly; flushed face; burst blood vessels on her cheeks and eyeballs. What Tony had not seen in the yellow beam of John Taylor’s flashlight was the irregular necklace of bruises on her throat, the imprints of a hand.

  Tony’s eyes shut.

  When he opened them, Saul Ravin was studying the pictures with heavy-lidded impassivity. “I’m glad your job has some thrills,” he murmured to McCain. “This must be a moment to remember. I know Tony will. But now you’ve had it, so you can put these away. What I’d appreciate is a copy of the autopsy report.”

  Dana stared at him. “When we bring charges, you can see it. Not before.”

  Saul turned to Tony with a look of deep compassion. “Do you have anything else to say to these … gentlemen?”

  Tony fought for self-control. Then he gazed at the two detectives across the pictures that would become his enduring image of Alison Taylor, and said, “Just find the animal who did this—”

  “Now there’s an idea,” Saul interjected. Rearranging the photographs, he slid them back in the envelope. “For example, a perusal of your police blotter in the Lake City Weekly shows that there are transients in Taylor Park at night. You file reports on the ones you stop. I’d pull those out, if I were you. Then I’d put out a teletype to every police force in the area, asking for reports on rapes and assaults. Not to mention strangulations.” He stood abruptly and pinned the envelope to McCain’s chest with the palm of his hand. “Tony’s right,” he told the red-faced detective. “You should find this guy. Unless you want more pictures to look at.”

  * * *

  Saul and Tony sat on a park bench in front of City Hall.

  The day had the clear bleached look of sunshine on a chill morning; there was a sheen of early frost, and the grass, no longer growing, was flat to the ground. When Saul turned to Tony, giving a heavy sigh, it turned to mist between them.

  “They wanted to see how you’d react,” he said. “Maybe hoped you’d blurt something out.”

  Tony still felt numb. “I wanted to punch the fucker. But I couldn’t even move.”

  “You did fine the way you were. Actually, you’ve got a lot of self-possession. Maybe they don’t believe you, but now they know you’d be a problem for them as a witness. And that your prior statement is a problem too.” Saul pulled up the collar of his black wool overcoat. “Anyhow, we’re through with them. From now on, I deal with the county prosecutor’s office. They’re the ones who’ll decide whether to charge you—Johnny Morelli, the head of Criminal, and, in a case like this, the CP himself.”

  Tony rubbed his eyes. “What were all the questions about? What we did, how we did it…”

  Saul stared off into the distance, as if deciding how much to say. “It’s a sex crime,” he said at length. “We know that much for sure.”

  “Why for sure?”

  For a moment, Saul frowned, and then he spoke quietly. “They’re not mistaking first-time sex for rape, Tony. This creep did something to her. I don’t know what—maybe he made her suck him first, maybe penetration was pretty brutal. That’s what they’re not telling us or the press. It’s why I asked for the autopsy report and why they wouldn’t give it up.”

  Mind reeling, Tony folded his hands in front of him, sickened. In that moment, all that he could think of was how much he hated the man who had done this to Alison—the things he knew too well, the things he could only imagine. Tonelessly, he asked, “Why not just say what happened to her?”

  “Because whatever her body told them, only they and the murderer know. They want to keep it that way. Morelli’s hoping the case will get better, making damn sure he doesn’t step on it somehow.” Saul ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll try to open his mind a little. Especially about the kind of person who strangled Alison and did whatever else to her that the police, and maybe the Taylors, are keeping to themselves. He could be a repeater, Tony. I should know—I’ve defended three of them. One of mine’s out and running around, God help the world. And so may this one be.

  “I’m going to ask my friend Morelli to access any sex-crime file he can, looking for anyone like that who was anywhere close to here this fall.” Saul paused, eyes narrowing. “This morning Morelli wouldn’t tell me a goddam thing. So we’ll just have to wait them out.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “As long as he wants. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.” Saul turned to him again. “I guess you know things won’t be the same for a while. A lot of people live in a town like this because they want to feel safe, to keep their kids away from people they’re afraid of for some reason—blacks, Jews, whatever. When a girl like Alison Taylor dies, it tells them they’re not safe after all. That makes them fearful, and angry. Somehow you’re going to have to ride that out. Are you prepared for that?”

  “I’m not sure.” In his despair, Tony thought of his mother: fearful as she was, the one person she always had believed in was Tony himself. Tony would be like Bill Bradley, she told him, the Princeton basketball player and Rhodes scholar she had read about in Look magazine—the one they already mentioned for President. Abruptly, Tony realized he had come to believe that he was special; that if he worked hard and lived right, the world would reward him. “Do you know,” he asked Ravin, “what my mom used to tell me every night when I was a kid? ‘Every day, with God’s help, you can make your life better and better.’ ”

  Ravin gave him a look of irony and understanding. Not unkindly, he said, “Your mother probably didn’t dwell on this small piece of history, but as late as this century, some of your Polish Catholic ancestors used to make their lives a little better by bludgeoning my Jewish ancestors to death. Many of those who led pogroms were frightened, of course—they thought that Jews were devils. But that’s what inspired Grandfather Ravinsky to emigrate. In Poland, being an outsider could mean death.

  “Suddenly you’re not just Catholic, Tony, but a real outsider—someone people are afraid of. And yet you know that you’re no different—only their perception is. Learn from that, if you can.” Another faint smile. “Knowing that Sol Ravinsky’s grandson will not let them make you the centerpiece of their
personal pogrom.”

  Tony tried to picture his next weeks and months at school—perhaps charged with murder, perhaps just waiting. With real bitterness, he said, “Easy for you to call this a learning experience. What’s to learn from those pictures, Saul? What’s to learn from people thinking I did that?”

  Saul drew a breath. “Maybe that the world is unfair, and not only to you. Maybe just to rely on yourself and not on a round of applause.” He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “What is it you want, Tony?”

  “Now? For this to go away. For Alison to be waiting by my locker when I go back to school tomorrow.”

  “I mean before this. When Alison was alive.”

  It seemed like years ago, Tony thought. Finally, he said, “To go to Harvard. To get a scholarship—God knows I’ll need it now. To live in a bigger place than this one.”

  Saul looked at him keenly. “What else?”

  Tony’s mind went blank; when the answer came to him, he was too embarrassed to say it aloud. “What is it?” Ravin asked.

  Tony faced him. “I wanted to beat Sam Robb. To be Athlete of the Year.”

  Saul grasped Tony’s shoulders, gazing intently into his eyes. “Then make sure that you do those things. Make sure.” His voice softened. “Don’t let this murderer—these cops, these people—take that from you too.”

  ELEVEN

  “Killer…”

  There were six seconds to play, and Lake City was tied with Riverwood at forty-two all. Both basketball teams were mediocre; by now, late January, the only thing at stake was pride. But the Lake City gym was packed: the home side because it was Riverwood, the Riverwood side because they wanted revenge. And now they had something to shout about.

  “Killer…”

  Tony Lord was about to shoot two free throws.

  He stood at the foul line, the players in blue and red lining both sides of the basket, ready to fight for the ball if Tony missed the second shot.

  Bending forward, Tony took a deep breath. The Riverwood chant grew rhythmic.

  “Killer, killer, killer…”

  Wiping the sweat from his eyes, Tony took the ball from the referee. He gazed at the basket, trying to ignore the crowd.